


put your money on me

by asukalangley



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-01-12 15:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18449096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asukalangley/pseuds/asukalangley
Summary: All’s fair in love and office wars.





	1. a right that's wrong

**Author's Note:**

> happy 413!!!!!!!!!!! yes this fic is loosely based on the hating game by sally thorne . you should probably just go read that instead

Chapter one

(or)

A right that’s wrong.

Like everything these two do, the whole affair is terribly immature.

Dave raises his right hand smoothy; his reflection follows. He straightens the collar of his shirt; his reflection follows. Dave lowers his shades slightly because he knows his reflection can’t, and as predicted, his reflection’s thick brows furrow. The rush of excitement does not translate into anything tangible on Dave’s face.

Instead, they sit there, on two opposite ends of the room, and glare into each other’s eyes.

The first thing to know about Dave Strider, and the most important, is that he hates Karkat Vantas. Starting out as an intern at Sburb Station – arguably the finest radio station in all of America – had been like getting pushed into a coliseum and realising you weren’t actually alone. What should have been a wonderful foot-in-the-door job is, in actuality, a kick into the sixth ring of Hell.

Karkat is currently copying every move Dave makes. He’s good enough that any casual observer wouldn’t be able to pick up on it, but to Dave it’s as obvious as Karkat’s rampaging abuse of the capslock key. Every one of Dave’s movements is replicated from the other side of the office with the infuriating time delay of a single second. The look Karkat gives him is both smug and irritated.

It’s a game they play. The rules are simple: you piss each other off until someone laughs or someone ends up dead in a ditch. Dave’ll know the rules for sure when he wins.

An old Chemical Brothers song lilts through the office speakers. Karkat drags his eyes away from Dave’s only when his email alert chimes, then resumes hammering away at his keyboard. Karkat is never one to let things unfold things carefully. Rather, he likes to be the one to bend it to his will. That doesn’t mean he ever has the spine to get on and, you know, bend.

“Listeners don’t like to be apologised to via capslock,” Dave observes aloud. Why does he have to poke the hornet’s nest? “They prefer to have the horseshit delivered straight to their house.”

“You’re so intelligent.” Karkat replies with bite. “Please, continue to impart your knowledge on the rest of us lowlifes as we kiss your shiny, red-conversed feet. That is, if you can feel your toes from all the way up there.”

“Can I remind you that comments about appearance are strictly against the Sburb human resources policy?” Dave mocks.

“Stop trying to fuck me over or I’ll report you to HR.”  
  
“The only fucking that goes on here,” Dave motions between them with his thumb and pinky, “is how life is fucking me right in the ass by forcing me to be in the same room with you for long periods at a time. I lost my virginity the second I met you.”

“That’s an HR report just waiting to happen.”

“Oh, Karkat. You know exactly what to say to make me wish I was aborted.”

Karkat’s lips twitch downwards before he looks determinedly at his screen and starts smashing away again.

When Dave was little, his life had revolved around three things: his friends, his blogs, his music. In some ways, these things are still at the core. It is ambitious, or woeful, or maybe there is little difference between them at all. Achilles would say so, at least. There’d been times when the voices on the radio were the only ones Dave would hear for days at a time, so as the Lord would say, it’s only right to give back. Please pass the donation bucket along.

It’s not that he has an intense passion for working in radio, or even exclusively making music – and it’s _great_ that he’s achieving a childhood dream, but...

Maybe the only reason he hasn’t found something else yet is because he can’t let Karkat Vantas win.

The Chemical Brothers give way to Blue Monday, and Blue Monday gives way to Pendulum. Karkat’s keystrokes intensify. All is right with the world.

Until Rose calls.

His phone is set to vibrate, and with a swift look around the office – Karkat’s too busy making marketing cry, the hot desks are all empty, and Scratch won’t be in ‘til noon – he accepts the call.

“Dave,” she says before he can even say hello. “I’ve just remembered something of total and absolute importance.”

“Good. Great. Fantastic. That’s what I would have said if you’d asked how I was.”

“I’m glad things aren’t going horrible-terrible for you today. But I’m going to be quite honest in that I’d like to get to the point. I’ve just remembered that I need to talk to you about a date.”

“A date?”

“Yes, Dave. A date. A foreign concept, I know, but I hear your Strider genes have the capacity to land any hot babe.”

Dave fails to provide any sort of meaningful response. At least to that.

You see, Rose Lalonde is the sort of girl who writes intricate love poems that always end tragically and are more often than not inspired by the same shitty online generators. She is a stare caught out of the corner of your eye, a black-lipped smile, a girl whose childhood will always end up betraying her.

Rose Lalonde is also his twin sister. And without Rose, Dave would never remember where he put his keys.

(It’s something he’s still learning to do, to split himself among the people he loves, as opposed to keeping it all to himself. It’s – God forbid – ironic, given the circumstances.)

Dave types in the password to his elderly work computer with his free hand: ihatekarkat666. Karkat’s password is inevitably IHATEDAVE4EVER. “What kind of sick freaks hold a gun up to their wedding guests’ heads and tells them they have to bring a date?”

“Sick freaks who are concerned about you.”

“More like sick freaks who get their rocks off from meddling in other people’s lives. Is this about you just wanting me to move out?”

“Not entirely.” Rose concedes. He can imagine her on the other end of the line, sitting primly on her expensive couch with some crocheted atrocity in her lap, the end of her nonexistent phone line twirled around her finger. “Though I would like to spend more time alone. With Kanaya. At our place. It’s either you find a date or you pick up a hobby that requires you to leave the house.”

“You’re a horrible sister.” Dave says without any heat.

“I love you too.” He can hear her smug smile all the way down the line. Despite all this, Dave knows that later he will think of all the things he would never say anyway. _Why are you pushing me away? Do you even want me here at all?_ Or even a simple _I miss you like an ache in my chest._ They’d never fall out of his lips right. “What time does your social gathering finish tonight?”

“Could you just tell me you want to fuck your fiance like any other normal person?”

He can see Karkat’s head shoot up from over the top of his computer.

“Date. Wedding. Don’t come home until it’s safe.”

He rolls his eyes from behind the safety of his shades. He pulls up his email – because, yes, the corporate world really is floating by on emails and stolen office supplies only – and opens a general staff email about remembering to fill timesheets in with the correct usage of the twenty-four hour clock or something as equally redundant.

He doesn’t have the time to think about how he’d come to Rose two years ago on a one-way ticket and a promise he’d never go back. He doesn’t think about pointed shades, the crackling caw of a crow above, the air thick with yet another Texas summer. He doesn’t think of a violence so intimate he thinks the hurt is coded into his very DNA.

He doesn’t have the time, and yet sometimes a second can feel like forever.

“Yeah, whatever. You’re opening Pandora’s box here. There’s nothing stopping me from dialing-a-date someone hotter than Kanaya and showing you up at your own wedding. Generations to come will still be feeling the weight of that burn.”

“As if you could afford it.” She’s shaking her head. He knows it. He knows Rose like he knows the back of his hand. At least, he thinks he knows. Sometimes Rose can be an emptiness inside of him; some kind of tenderness spiked with wanderlust. “Goodbye, Dave.”

She hangs up, and Dave doesn’t even need to look up to know Karkat’s shaking his head.

“May I remind you that talking about sexual conduct at work is against the Sburb policy?”

“Stop listening in on my conversations or I’ll report you to HR.”

Karkat can’t seem to formulate a reply. Instead he just glares some more at Dave, which is another opportune moment for Dave to get annoyed about how non-ugly Karkat is. If Dave wanted further proof that there really is no justice in the world, it is sitting across from his desk. Karkat is handsome in a way that requires a little work from the viewer, in that his face isn’t conventional but isn’t quite haute-couture, either. He manages to make the ‘I’ve-just-been-electrocuted’ hairstyle not look like shit. The persistent bags under his eyes certainly exist. He is an affront to conventional attractiveness.

You see, there are many things Dave hates about Karkat. One of which is, of course, his horrible attractiveness. Another is that Karkat probably did boring things in high school, like study, and speak respectfully to all the staff and students, and care about his future. He must’ve been a hit with all teachers over the age of fifty-nine. Another thing he hates is that Karkat most certainly watches some variation of the Bachelor, and definitely thinks Mr Darcy and Keira Knightley are the epitome of romance. Don’t ask Dave what drew him to this conclusion. It will only end badly.

It’s something Dave likes to do - fill in the gaps about Karkat. It’s much better to make things up than have to bear the weight of listening to Karkat get on his high horse and talk about how much better his life is than Dave’s. (Like that’s a hard feat.)

“What’s this about HR?”

“Oh, cool. Vriska was eavesdropping.” Leaning her butt against one of the many hot-desks around them with her arms folded over her chest, Vriska has all the charm of a chemical weapon. If this were a dating show, then Vriska enjoys spiders, vividly dreaming up everyone around her’s dramatic and horrifying deaths, and long walks to the cash register with somebody else’s credit card. Dave normally enjoys going toe-to-toe with her in the same way that one would enjoy being forced to chew glass.

“I swear we get more complaints from you two than the entire listenership combined.” She snorts to herself. Somehow, of all people, of all potential possibilities, Vriska Serket is an assistant to someone important in the bowels of HR. It’s an executive decision that makes sense to approximately zero people, and makes Dave question the sanity and the ethics of this here institution.

“Don’t you have other people to bother?” Karkat asks without looking up from the paperwork he’s sorting out. Their job description is nonexistent. The two of them just do whatever needs to be done, from filing paperwork to sorting and responding to complaints, from fetching coffee to helping out in the studios. That’s where the real meat of everything is to Dave: the sound booths. Optimism says that’s where he’s going to end up, one way or the other. Realism says he’s going to end up working in - and excuse the shudder - corporate for the rest of his life.

(Life is nothing but a graveyard of dead and discarded dreams.)

“Believe it or not, but mama Serket’s got bigger fish to fry.” Vriska talks like she’s constantly rubbing her evil little hands together. “Don’t suppose you know where Scratch is?”

“Yeah,” Dave says, “let me just look at the tracker I got surgically implanted in his arm so when I start to get a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome I can check out where my kidnapper’s getting his third organically sourced coffee of the day.”

He can see Karkat shake his head slowly, his lips sealed shut on whatever scathing reply he has buried behind his teeth.

“You should really spend less time with Mr Grouchy Pants over here and start conversing with your superior coworkers.”

“I already hang out with Terezi.”

Affronted, with her nose scrunched to one side, Vriska replies, “I meant _me_. I’m really smart, you know.”

“Name one thing you’ve done that didn’t end in total destruction and despair.” Karkat says as blandly as one can when shout-speaking.

“I haven’t murdered you,” she replies with narrowed eyes.

“I’d say that’s led to the continued despair and destruction of humanity.” Dave mutters, taking the top piece of paper on his own Leaning Tower of Paperwork; a stack of payroll filing that rises high and leans slightly to the right.

“When you spend eighty percent of your time cooped up in here, it’s easy to see why you’re such a smartass all the time.” Vriska muses aloud. “If you worked literally anywhere else you might have a social life!”

“You might be able to find a date.” Karkat edges in, and it is the worst kind of shot he could fire. Dave sees Vriska’s eyes catch with interest.

“A date? For what?”

“None of your business. Don’t you have work to do?”

“I can lend you Terezi for a weekend.”

“No thanks.”

“It’s for a wedding.” Karkat watches Dave with cynical interest. “He needs a date for a wedding.”

Vriska’s mouth splits into a sharp-toothed grin. “Kanaya’s?”

“And Rose’s. You know, my sister. The person I shared a womb with. The person who’s marrying Kanaya but is also my sister.”

“Of course you need a date!” She nods aggressively, her tangle of hair swishing with the movement. What is with everyone ignoring everything Dave says today? “It would be _tooooooootally_ humiliating if you showed up without one!”

Karkat’s sudden cough sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

“Thanks, Vriska.” Dave says flatly.

“We should make you a Tinder! I’ll call Terezi. We’re the dream team when it comes to bios. We’re just really good at seeing people’s potential, you know?”

“I have an even better idea.” Karkat says, still staring through Dave’s shades and directly into his eyes.

Vriska dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Give me your phone. I need to rate your selfies.”

“How about I be Dave’s date?”

Dave freezes. Vriska pauses. Then –

“Who knew your single brain cell was capable of brilliant ideas, Vantas?”

Karkat keeps staring at Dave, waiting. It’s a game of dare, he realises, where Dave can either back down and let Karkat win, or call his bluff and trap him into Karkat’s own personal despair and destruction. Something – his dignity, probably – sinks to the bottom of his stomach.

“Alright.” Dave says. “You free on the 13th?”

For the smallest instant, Karkat looks almost surprised. Still, there’s a badly muffled note of smugness when Karkat says, “pick me up at eight?”

“It starts at two pm.”

“Oh.” Karkat’s brows crease. “Pick me up at one?”

Dave goes back to sorting his paperwork into the correct piles like his heart isn’t throwing itself wildly against his ribcage. “Yeah, okay.”

Dave can hear the unbridled glee in Vriska’s voice. “It’s always a cereal bar and a show with you two!”

“Don’t you have shit to do?”

Vriska pushes herself away from the desk. “Terezi and I want hourly updates. The only way I’ll be able to sleep at night is if I know you two don’t have some kind of murder-suicide pact on the brink of activation. I want to see this movie all the way through!” She huffs a laugh to herself, then adds as an afterthought, like she didn’t come all this way just to say, “and let me know when Scratch shows up. Tell him I have _allllllll_ the paperwork he asked for. The important ones.”

She wants him to ask about them, so Dave says, “Yeah, whatever.”

She shoots him a smug, knowing look before she saunters off, back to the lower levels of HR and mini kitchenettes.

* * *

Dave rechecks his inbox at one fifty-four. He doesn’t have to be anywhere until five, and yet his inbox is clear and this stack of filing can wait another day. He checks the Club Penguin Rewritten Twitter. Nothing new. He checks Karkat, whose eyes are slitted at him. So it’s The Staring Game now. Dave’s good at this one, on account of the whole shades thing and all; because that’s the thing – Dave is good at watching without being watched, but only Karkat ever seems to catch him at it. He sees Dave looking when he examines his fingernails, when he stretches his neck. Dave is pretty sure Karkat was adopted straight out of Hell.

“How many customers did you make cry today, Karkles?”

“Seven. And don’t call me that.”

Dave places his chin in the palm of his hand. “Just because it throws a tantrum doesn’t mean it’s more right than you.”

The elevator doors open just as Karkat is about to reply with what Dave’s sure is somewhere on the petulant end of the scale. Scratch brings about finality like a full-stop.

Doctor Scratch (so named for Satan, because anyone who comes crawling out of the fiery pits of hell has names that are synonymous with the devil. Phd in torment, despair, user engagement, and radio) is an impressive person in multiple ways, mostly in that he once was quoted saying that ‘radio is a male-dominated profession despite decades of evolution, which surely says something’’ and Dave still doesn’t know if he’s meant to take it as confirmation that Scratch is a misogynist or not.

“Just the men I was hoping to see,” which should be jovial, but nothing ever is coming out of Scratch’s mouth. He continues on to his office, his jacket folded primly over his forearm. Dave looks at Karkat, who is looking right back at him, eyes wide. It’s a race to who can get to Scratch’s door first.

Dave beats him, but only just. He can just hear Karkat say it’s a long-legs thing. Is this what Karkat’s done? Implanted something in his brain so he can telecommunicate straight to Dave’s brain through sheer willpower and alien technology alone?

Scratch indicates to the seats across from him that they should feel free, and Dave sits down with the tense uneasiness of someone lowering themselves into a bath of ice-cold water. Karkat follows suit in a similar fashion. If Dave were a stuck up, social-climber, he might feel the need to comment on the office Scratch holds, or talk about how much interior design tells one about a person. Unfortunately, he’s not, so all description about how family photos and endearing trinkets have been replaced by intimidation and a bunch of matte, white shit seems entirely irrelevant.

“I’ll be brief. There’s going to be a restructure in the internship team.” Scratch starts. “Namely, one of you is going to find himself a permanent position here at Sburb, and the other elsewhere.”

Both Dave and Karkat sit up straighter.

“You mean only one of us is going to be hired on?” Karkat looks stricken. He may or may not be teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“Precisely that, Mr. Vantas. But there’s no need to look like we’ve already sent you packing. You’ll both have to work hard for this promotion.”

Suspicious now, Karkat goes, “work how?”

“By proving yourselves, of course. I have no doubt that you can do that by whatever means necessary.”

“And where’s that intern going to end up?” Dave asks.

He leans back in his pretentious leather chair with his hands clasped together, a satisfied smile creeping along his lips. The chair’s legs squeak ominously against the white floor. Scratch, whether he’ll admit it or not, is quite a fan of old-school sadism and torture techniques, such as not answering his emails and stating everything like a thinly-veiled threat. Of course his chair is going to squeak ominously. “Ah, I’m glad you asked, Mr. Strider. You’ll be transferred to the night shift.”

Dave’s susceptible little heart is all Scratch’s right now. He has half the mind to leap out of his seat and start kissing his shiny, black shoes. There’s a lesson in all of this somewhere, but Dave can’t quite find it within himself to care.

“Which means only the best of you will be accepted. There will be a presentation from both of you as part of the next interview. We’ll want to hear your thoughts on the future of Sburb, as well as what… unique perspectives and voice you can bring.”

Unique perspectives. Well, if Dave can have one thing covered, it’s unique perspectives.

“Of course, it’s open to both internal and external candidates as well.” He waves his hand. Dave taps his fingers against his thigh. He wonders very briefly if he could get away with shredding Scratch’s bow tie when all of this is over, or if Karkat will give him up from beyond the corporate grave. “Obviously I’d rather have people who’ve worked here before, but it’s not entirely up to me. Now get.”

They ignore each other until they don’t.

“What are you going to do?” Karkat asks. He angles his chair towards his computer with an eagerness Dave doesn’t think he’s ever seen from him before. Maybe he’s all lit up inside just like Dave is.

“None of your business. What are you going to do?”

“Show you up is what.”

“Keep dreaming. You have to be at least 5 foot to ride the elevator that high.”

“I’m 5’1.”

Dave gives him a quick once-over. He’s always found himself bending like a question mark when he’s next to Karkat. He isn’t sure if he finds it cute or funny as fuck, and it bothers him that it manages to be both. “What, once you give yourself a few hours on the turning rack?”

Karkat wears that sat-on-a-cactus expression he wears so well. “I’m being serious.”

“Like I’m gonna tell you what I’m thinking of doing. You’ll Home Alone me so hard I’ll be nursing my third degree burns a la hot irons for years to come.”

“I’m not asking so I can fuck you over.” Karkat’s nose scrunches up to meet his brows. “I’m asking so I can help you out.”

Dave wonders briefly if he had to force the words out, or if this is step one in some elaborate ploy to murder and disassemble Dave’s body. He hopes the trash bag he’s found in will suit his pale complexion, at least. “The only help I want from you is in the filing room, asshat.”

Karkat’s face hardens. “Fuck you. I’m gonna kick your ass with this so hard even your great-great grandchildren are going to be feeling it. And then their great-great grandchildren are gonna spend every night asking for the story of how their great-great-great-great grandfather got his ass handed back to him on a silver platter and tarnished the entire Strider name. Now I’m gonna do a fucking stellar job of not giving a shit.”

Scratch that. The most important thing to know about Dave Strider? It’s that he knows that he hates Karkat like he knows how to breathe.

“Bring it.” 

* * *

“So it’s either going to be the best thing to happen to me, or the total fucking worst. Like if the concept of bad shit was measured in metric tonnes, it’d be the entire weight of all the planets and sailor scouts combined.”

Like his twin sister, Dave is standing on the island counter. A lightbulb had needed to be changed, you see. At least, that’s what Rose had said when he’d come home to an already perfectly lit living room. Dave just thinks it’s an excuse for her to psychoanalyse him in a new location.

“Worse than the time you got gum stuck in your hair and I convinced you that the only way to get it out was for you to go bald?”

“That moment was only made bad because we were four and you were devil-spawn. Also, I distinctly recall you being the one to put that shit in there.”

“I still maintain that you’d look rather dashing with a shiny, bald head instead. One can only hope for a receding hairline.”

Dave wrestles the stubborn bulb back into its spiral holding. “Correction: you are still devil-spawn.”

“Maybe you’ll get the job.”

“Yeah, and maybe I’ll run for president.”

“You need to give yourself more credit.” Rose hops down from the counter as delicately as one can, namely by trying to balance herself on one of the island’s stools.

“You beat all those other applicants in the first place.”

“Yeah, and Karkat got in too, so I don’t really see where the compliment here is.”

Rose frowns. “Have you noticed your constant need to bring up Karkat in conversation, or is that something you’re aware of and trying to rectify?”

“Are you going to admit you dropped out of therapy-school and stop trying to psychoanalyse me?” He sits down on the counter and trusts his long legs to get him back to the ground.

“You need to learn the difference between psychoanalysis and pointing out the obvious. What’s for dinner?”

Thanks to his… well, father isn’t the word he ever wants to use, but thanks to _him_ , who had often said that he would raise Dave to be good at useless shit or die of shame in the attempt, Dave is a pretty decent cook. His teaching methods had included leaving Dave alone long enough that Dave had no choice but to learn how to make shit, save he ate Taco Bell and lukewarm noodles for the fourth night in a row. This is the very same Strider who runs Smuppets.com. The very same Strider who had pencilled in just enough time in his busy schedule to produce Dave.

It was a quick fuck that wasn’t meant to have spiraled into twins and two different states, and that’s all that Dave’s managed to surmise in his twenty years of life.

These are his homemade chains, he supposes.

Either way, he’s better at throwing ingredients together than Rose, who has the taste buds of a half-dead rabbit, and Kanaya, who means well but can’t quite make it past canned spaghetti and toast.

“I don’t know. I was too busy thinking of my impending doom to come up with a one course meal.” He opens the fridge idly, cataloguing the pots of yogurt (Rose), the sparkling water (Kanaya’s only fault), the carrots (Rose), the half-eaten easter bunny (Dave’s), and the mince that needs to be used before the following day (a group affair). “I’m thinking a McDonald’s chicken burger.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m just going to lie artfully across this counter as I die of malnutrition.”

“Dude, what’s got your proverbial knickers in a twist? Oh god, don’t turn that into something perverted and try to psychoanalyse me again. I’m fuckin’ begging you over here. Metaphorically down on my knees on this shitty kitchen floor and everything.”

“Dave, you can’t torment Rose like this. Her day has already been bad enough already. She has been quite rumbled by someone online called ‘KantianKunt’ today.” Kanaya leans a hand against doorway leading into the kitchen. Her smile is slight and sly. “We must do our best to support her in this hour of need.”

Dave nearly chokes. His sister had taken to discussing and dissecting various ethical theories from a young age, and while she takes pleasure in studying Dave as her prime psychoanalytical subject, she still likes to pass the time arguing with strangers online. Kanaya, as her loving fiance and bride-to-be, only encourages this behaviour. She says she finds no greater pleasure than watching Rose verbally slaughter fourteen year old boys who think Kant hit some points.

“Kanaya, that was hours ago. I’ve moved onto much fresher meat.”

Dave throws his hands up as he edges towards the door. “I don’t care. You pick the takeaways. Leave me the fuck out of this.”

And if Dave’s heart feels heavy when he hears Rose and Kanaya giggle quietly together, it is in a place where he can no longer feel it.


	2. that is to say, optimistic

Chapter two

(or)

That is to say, optimistic.

It’s one o’clock and Dave’s stack of paperwork looks no smaller than it was before. If he tilts his head this way, it even looks a little bit bigger. Maybe he will go out and play in the afternoon traffic.

Dave leans his head – no, his entire body – against the palm of his hand and initiates The Staring Game. It takes a short eternity before Karkat leans back from his computer and they stare so deep into each other’s eyes that Dave thinks that the likelihood of Keanu Reeves booting the Matrix back up is fairly high. He’s been out and about recently. There’s a chance.

“Nervous?”

“What.” Dave goes. “Why would I be?”

Karkat does that puffed up feather thing that only works on birds and Vriska. “For the wedding.”

“Smugness does not become you, young Vantas.” Dave slumps further against his hand.

“It’s not too late to pull out if you’re too chicken. I’m sure Rose will stop making fun of you when you’re forty.”

“Sounds to me like you’re the one regretting sticking his chicken-ass out. How much are you gonna sell those eggs for? Oh wait, you’d have to get laid first.”

“Has the fact that you’re always bringing up my sex life escaped you, or are you really just that bored?

“How can I bring up a sex life you clearly don’t have?”

“You’re the self-proclaimed virgin. How would you know anything about _my_ sex life?”

Dave mentally hits enter on a new line for an HR report. “Basic Sherlockian deduction, dude. You couldn’t even bone someone in a bed. They’d spend all night searching the sheets for your tiny little body.”

“So you’ve been thinking of my bed?” Karkat replies haughtily.

Dave eyes him critically. “I’m just saying it’d need to be a very small bed.”

A cloud passes over Karkat’s face. It’s like shivering when you stand in the heat. A little shake of nerves – or anticipation – in all the wrong places. “Fuck you, you fucking jackoff.”

“The NSA of UST is entering a code red. You’ve said at least four target words in the last minute alone. Time to take this one upstairs.”

Does Karkat shake with rage, or is that just Dave’s overactive imagination? “HR.”

“Is that the safe word we’re going with? Alright.”

“The word we’re going with is nothing because this whole conversation is worthless fucking bullshit for silly fucking children.”

“Dude, this whole job is just that.”

“Fuck you.”  
  
“You said that already.”

Karkat’s goes from stony to very stony. “Fuck you.”

Dave rolls his upper body off his desk and gets to his feet. “Well, if you insist.”

“What are you doing?”

Dave grabs his phone off his desk and heads towards the elevator, saying over his shoulder, “what, did you really think for even a hot second I was gonna go over there and reenact your pseudo romance-novel-turned-porno with you? Get fuckin’ real.”

Hurt passes over Karkat like a holograph, there, but not quite. Dave almost feels a little bad.

Then, “my pseudo romance-novel-turned-pornos don’t involve dickheads with a glasses-complex.”

Yeah, almost.

* * *

As soon as Dave breaches the threshold of the HR level, he is bombarded with the sight of beige; from the walls, the carpet, the desks, to the off-white shirt Steve from accounts is wearing. Dave’s always supposed that beige is a neutral colour in the same way that Scratch’s white walls have stood by and watched countless careers get murdered.

He lets his gaze wander around the room for a split-second before he spots her, her hoodie a stroke of black in the sea of beige. He keeps his footsteps loud enough for her to hear. “Hey, TZ.”

Terezi turns her head over her shoulder, her red glasses glinting under the unflattering office lights. Her grin threatens to split her face in half. She is wonder beyond the telling of it. “Coolkid! Why have you not come down here since – what, we exploded things in the microwave?”

“I think you just answered your own question there.”

“The microwave’s been sick ever since.” An oxymoron for you: she shakes her head with faux-disappointment, still baring all her teeth. “We’ve had to go to level seven just to get anything to enter the remote vicinity of warm. What’s up?”

When Dave had first shown up at Sburb, he’d found that he was a magnet set to the same wavelength as everyone else: no matter how hard he tried, he only pushed everyone away. And then, of course, he’d disasterly asked Terezi out on day three and she’d all but laughed in his face, and everything was nearly okay after that. He’s long since learned that being friends with Terezi is the better bargain here. He’s always pleased and honored to know her, and uncertain that he does at all.

“Can I interest you in helping our not-so-booming economy by grabbing an early lunch?” He says, just as he notices Vriska striding towards them like she’s caught Terezi being harassed on the street by a stranger, not talking to a friend. “I gotta talk to–”

“Hey, it’s Dave.” Vriska says coldly, stopping beside Terezi.

“Hi Vriska.”

“It’s been some time. Kanaya told me you made your own Minecraft server.”

“Why is Kanaya talking to you?”

“Go away, Vriska.” Terezi says, still smiling. “Dave’s taking me to lunch.”

“If this is about joining his Minecraft server–”

Terezi grabs Dave’s arm with surprising accuracy and starts to lead him towards the elevator, passing several people who quickly change computer tabs to make it look like they’re doing work along the way, even though Terezi is legally blind and it wouldn’t matter anyway. “Going now.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you capable, Dave.” Vriska calls. “I almost have to commend you.” She slow-claps them as the elevator doors close.

They don’t speak properly again – meaningless shit, like how Terezi’s been trying to scam children into buying her video games with their parent’s credit cards; like Vriska’s Minecraft server – until they get to a booth in the overpriced café down the street. A soft rain has started to fall, like wet, unwelcome kisses, and Dave fleetingly worries it will be enough to leave his hair frizzy by the time he makes it back to the office.

“So, what’s the impending meltdown about, Coolkid?” Terezi shoves four ketchup-covered fries into her mouth at once. Dave had quickly learned after an inter-department shared lunch that Terezi would much sooner get into a bath with a hairdryer than share her food.

“Oh. You know. Just things.”

“You know what we need to get?”

“Please don’t say this party started. Please don’t say this party started.”

“This–”

“Please don’t say–”

“Party-”

“This party started–”

“Started!” Terezi’s grin is all teeth. “Except this party is going to be more like a Dave Strider Extravaganza: Sadfest Edition, which is a pretty tepid description of the best kind of party there is.”

“I thought you said you were trying to trick an eleven year old into buying you Corpse Party on Steam.”

“Listen, Dave.” She jabs her index finger to the table. “It would be in both our best interests for you to get straight to the point. I only have ten more minutes and twenty-nine more fries before I have to go pretend I did the HR filing last weekend.”

Dave raises both hands and forcibly unites them with his face. Sometimes words don’t sit in his mouth like he’s constantly leading everyone to believe. Sometimes they sit in his throat. Sometimes they don’t make it out of him at all. “I’m just… let’s just pretend I’m not venting about this proposal situation and we’re making fun of it instead,” is the angle he tries. “He offered to help me, TZ.”

“For the proposal, right? I’m going to pretend I don’t know everything because Vriska already told me all about it, but why don’t you just link up? Maybe they’d decide you’re better off together than alone. I know I’d tune in just to listen to you two rip into each other all night.”

“Thanks, Terezi.”

“What can I say? I’m a beacon of truth.”

“Let me just set aside some time to be stupid enough to believe that.”

“They’d have the budget to hire the both of you.” Her face softens with uncertainty. “You know the problem here isn’t that Karkat wants to help you, right?”

“Enlighten me, wise master. What _is_ the problem?”

Her expression sharpens again. Dave forgets what a kind Terezi even looks like at all. “The problem here is that you _want_ to work with him. You can’t be fucked putting effort into getting something you want. I wonder if you could reek of complacency even more than you already do.”

“Could you stop larping Rose for one second? Why would I willingly spend time with someone who’s constantly in my grill about HR and quoting shitty CW dramas whenever Scratch is out tearing the heads off investors?”

Terezi makes a face as if she disagrees as she drags seven fries through ketchup this time. “I’m not going to use your single brain cell for you.”

Dave toys with his shirt sleeve. The thing about talking to Terezi is that she’s good at finding the worst parts of you and pressing on the wound, so a little delicacy is required – something he has approximately zero awareness of. He wonders if she learned these various torture techniques from Vriska, or if Vriska learned them from her. “You’ve known him since forever, right? Where do you get off on it?”

She shrugs. “There are good things about him.”  
“I’m really not buying this house you’re selling, here. I’ve got a wife and two kids to care for and this haunted shack could be in my price range but you might as well be fucking your coworker in front of us for all we care.”

“Snore.” Terezi fumbles only slightly for her cane. Dave pretends not to notice. “I don’t know what to tell you, Coolkid. He’s my friend. Isn’t that a stamp of honour enough for you?”

“Yeah, well, you’re dating Vriska, so I don’t really see how anyone could consider your taste any good.”

She laughs and pats his head. “Well, whatever it’s worth, I hope you get the job.”

* * *

No one’s on his floor when he gets back to the office. There’s just Dave, the sweet sounds of My Chemical Romance, and Karkat’s empty desk in front of him. He supposes that that one scene of Game of Thrones he watched Rose taking notes on once was right when they said that knowledge really is power, and that he doesn’t have much.

His audit confirms that the top of Karkat’s desk contains a calendar, a list of all the emails and numbers of anyone who matters, a red pen, a black pen, and yellow post-its. There’s a shittily printed picture of Will Smith tacked to the side of the cubicle. His computer is locked (IHATEDAVE4EVER is not his password).

When he idly opens the top drawer, all he finds is stationary. The second drawer contains a hidden stack of filing. Ah. So that’s where it all went.

Bored, he goes back to scanning the top of the desk. His gaze stops at the calendar again, leaning his head in to get a better look. A tale is in the telling of it, and perhaps Karkat’s calendar will do it well. It has all these weird little marks on it, V’s and X’s and straight lines on random dates. He takes a picture on his phone. Then, he flips it forward to the date of their proposals and sees instead that the 13th is circled in red, just as he hears the cables in the elevator.

He hotfoots it back to his seat faster than you can say ‘Octopussy’.

Karkat looks at his desk, the inconspicuous black computer screen, the planner flipped a month in advance. He eyes Dave suspiciously. “Someone’s been through my desk.”

“Vriska.” Dave replies easily.

“And you just sat there and let her?”

“I wouldn’t get in a cage-fight with Vriska for anyone, let alone you.” And if you can’t trust your own word, who can you trust?

Karkat concedes that.

It’s funny, because Dave thinks maybe it wasn’t always this way with Karkat. Because it _wasn’t_ hate at first sight. In fact, Karkat had smiled at him that very first day, wide with a side of tentative as the sun hit the floating dust around the office, and Dave hadn’t quite known what to do.

What is wrong with him, that these little pieces of the past are always surprising him?

“What was she looking for?” Karkat goes.

“I don’t know. Her long-lost sanity, probably.” He shoves his headphones onto his head before Karkat can prod him further.

Unfortunately – or, something like that – it’s not Karkat who prods him.

Meenah sticks her head into the office at around three. He’s startled, which is understandable. Anyone would be startled if they were interrupted while playing mancala on Club Penguin and being forced to exit the tab just when they were about to get seven more pebbles in their fucking corner.

Her braids hang loosely at her sides as she holds the elevator and angles her body out toward them. “You two aren’t doing anything important, are you?”

“Define important.” Dave goes.

“Okay, good, because I really need two people to man the Skaia van tonight.”

“Don’t you have fucking minimum-wagers to do that shit for you?” Karkat spares her a glance before going back to violating his keyboard. He has a point – the Skaia van is for the radio interns who’ve aimed for the booths and missed nearly entirely. All they do is hand out freebies at events and look young and tanned while doing it. It’s safe to say that neither Dave nor Karkat will ever quite make the latter.

“Scratch already said I can borrow you. He forwarded you the address like, ten minutes ago.” Meenah says, near expressionless. “Now clamscray it.”

It’s kind of awkward how she should make a swift exit, but instead they have to both sit there and wait as _she_ waits for the doors to close despite pressing the button repeatedly.

“Hope she’s paying us extra for the bus fare.” Dave says mildly once the elevator’s swallowed her.

“I’ve got my car.”

“What, your white van with the windows blacked out? What’s it called, the murdermobile?”

“Maybe I’ll just drive myself and you can take the bus.” Karkat gathers his keys and stands up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I hope whatever integrity you have left can take the damage.”

“It beats getting murdered in the back of your murdermobile.”

Karkat seems to toss up between grimacing or glaring at him. Ignoring doesn’t seem to ever be in his arsenal. He settles with glaring at him. “Are you coming or what?”

Whatever Dave may say, he’d take getting murdered in the back of Karkat’s creepy van over taking the bus anyday. People do weird shit on there, like sitting on the seat directly beside you when there are at least five other empty rows to choose from. That doesn’t mean sitting in an enclosed space next to Karkat is less terrifying than when someone sits behind you and your paranoia convinces you they have a knife on them and they aren’t afraid to use it. There’s a reason the closest the two of them have ever sat together is when Scratch told them about the promotion.

“Man, what-fucking-ever.” He grabs his shit and follows Karkat to the elevator, refusing to even look at him from the corner of his eye.

They take the lift down to the ground floor in silence, save for when Karkat tells him that he’s parked outside the building and down the street. Fair enough. It’d probably take a whole month’s rent just to afford a year’s worth of parking in the Sburb building. They take the fire exit, which is _supposed_ to remain closed, but Dave saw Vriska use it once as a shortcut to the McDonald’s down the road and hasn’t followed that rule since.

Under the rain, harder and less steady than it was earlier, Karkat leads him to a silver BMW that’s probably older than Karkat himself. When Dave reaches the passenger door they face each other.

“So. This is the murdermobile.” Dave says.

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Just get in, asshole.”

Dave slides carefully into the car. He tries not to take note of the cutout of Will Smith’s face hanging off the rearview mirror or how the whole car smells like cherries, stale fries, and a hint of dust. It’s the result of what would happen if you threw everything Scratch hated in a big pot and poured it over some wheels. He wonders how quick the seats will dry.

“How’d you get your license, anyway?” Dave asks as Karkat plugs in the key and the engine whirs on. Sburb comes on over the radio, and Karkat turns the volume dial down. A tiny drop of water falls from his hair. “Did you have to sit on seven cushions and get the car modified so you could reach the pedals? Or did you just take it in one of those car carts they have at the supermarket?”

“Ha ha. I love it when the guy without his license makes jokes. You’re so fucking hilarious, Dave. You’re really tickling my absurdity plate.” He keeps his eyes firmly on the road as he drives. Dave glances at the way he grips the steering wheel, how his jaw clenches every time he changes gears. He’s not attracted to Karkat, he reminds himself. He’s just looking. “Oh, fuck this guy!”

Dave flinches as Karkat throws one hand up as the car in front of them makes a left hand turn without indicating. Of course Karkat would get road rage. Karkat glances at Dave, but neither of them say anything about the way Dave nearly flew out of his seat when he really shouldn’t have. This is not a conversation he wants to have with anyone ever, let alone Karkat.

(Bro’s fists were rattle snakes Dave would always shrink away from. Bro’s sword was the venom. Men aren’t supposed to hurt this way, he’d tell Dave. Men would take the hit - and excuse the irony - like a man. Needless to say, Dave’s been raised to be a man since the very start. And men don’t flinch when someone unexpectedly raises their voice.)

Karkat is uncharacteristically quiet for a while, until he goes, “so what’s happening with your sister’s wedding?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like. What’s the dress-code? Do I have to bring her anything?”

“Not really, dude. You could show up in what you’re wearing now and I doubt anyone would really care.”

“So it’s not fancy dress?”

“Rose doesn’t need to say shit to imply it’s fancy dress. I’d be more worried if we were going by _her_ definition of fancy dress.” He rests his face against his hand and his elbow against the base of the passenger window. “Best man has to wear a suit. You can match me if you want.” Karkat gives him a look that borders on contemptuous. “Or not. Whatever. What I’m tryin’ to say is that no one’s really gonna judge you if you show up in something comfortable.”

Karkat shakes his head. “I can’t tell if you’re stitching me up to humiliate me.”

Dave averts his eyes guiltily, even though he knows Karkat won’t see behind his shades while he’s driving. “Look, just ‘cause one prank went kind of awry once doesn’t mean I want to humiliate you at my sister’s wedding.” Not to mention that was the last time he’ll ever trust John on anything prank _or_ work related. He looks away from the window as Karkat pulls into the parking lot of the football field they’re supposed to be hanging around at for the next few hours. “I’d tell you it was a costume party if I wanted to do that. And besides, _you’re_ the one trying to stitch _me_ up.”

“I’m not trying to stitch you up.” Karkat says as he parks the car.

Dave goes to reply, but Karkat kills the engine and lifts himself out of the car before he can say anything more on the matter. He glances out the window. It looks miserable out on the field, and yet people are still huddled beneath the sheltered stands and masochists are still lining up to kick some balls. Karkat pulls a janky looking umbrella out of the boot and waits beside Dave’s door.

“I’m not paying you for the chauffeur-Uber service.” Dave says as he maneuvers himself underneath the umbrella, carefully not looking at Karkat. He can hear Fergie’s London Bridge echoing around the field as guys wearing red jerseys run a lap of the field on one side, while guys wearing blue run on the opposite. And of course, it’d be nearly impossible to miss the Skaia van that’s parked on the edge of the field, just far enough to be out of the way of any action but close enough that it’s no effort to walk from the shelter to the bliss of free Burger King vouchers or whatever the fuck they’re meant to be shoving in peoples’ hands.

Maybe this would be halfway decent if it weren’t grey and miserable.

“You wouldn’t be able to afford me, anyway.” Karkat’s forearm brushes Dave’s.

“Yeah, the amount of therapy I’d need from being trapped in a car with you would put me further into debt.”

The girl manning the Skaia van looks way too chipper for someone standing out in the rain all evening. She has a tumbling cascade of black hair and skin only a little darker than Karkat’s all under a bright orange umbrella. A Sburb hat sits pretty on her head. “Heya!” She calls, smiling wide. “Are you two helping out?”

“Oh, we sure are.” Karkat mutters under his breath as Dave nods.

“Cool! I’m Ella. We shouldn’t be too busy during the actual game, but half-time’s gonna be a real killer.” Yeah, she’s way too happy about this – like, more so than Jade would be. Should Dave be concerned? Should he call the police? “All we have to do is hand these out.” She gestures to the coolers holding cans of energy drinks in the open boot of the van. “Say some nice things about Sburb if people ask, and then we can skedaddle after half-time.”

Dave quickly pulls himself away from Karkat and under the safety of the boot door. Devil you know be damned.

“If you two are okay with it, you two can man the van while I hand some of these out in the stands?”

“Oh yeah. That’s cool.” Dave says without missing the way Karkat smiles at him with mock magnanimity.

She gives Dave another bright smile before bouncing off towards the stands with a small portable cooler. Dave sits down against the boot’s weird, fuzzy car interior the second she’s far away enough not to notice.

“She’s cute.” Karkat says, closing his umbrella and stepping under the door beside him.

“I don’t think she’s into gremlins, dude.”

Karkat narrows his eyes. “I mean she’s into you, fuckass. Don’t tell me you don’t have eyes behind those shades.”

“I knew there had to be something wrong with her.” Dave glances at him. “Hey, do you think you can manage to make your face resemble something like a smile without having anyone call the cops on us, or do you wanna hide in the cooler too?”

“You know it just sounds like you have a size kink, right? Like we get it. Everyone is tiny in comparison to your giant ass. Please don’t step on me with your giant feet.”

“Be careful, your melodrama’s showing. I’m sure you bringing up my ass twenty four seven doesn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t even know what she sees in you.” Karkat declares. “You look like you were executed a week ago.”

Dave’s brow peeks out from the top of his shades.

“Where’s your smart retort?”

“Oh, I bet you are on pins and needles waiting for it, aren’t you? All hot under the turtleneck collar.”

Karkat’s annoyance is so tangible he could throw it at Dave and leave a mark. Instead of making any good on it (probably because he knows he may not live to regret it, on account of Dave talking him to smithereens, or something as equally cool for Dave and humiliating for Karkat), he sits down on the other side of the cooler. A whistle blows as the game starts but neither of them pay much attention. Karkat scans the crowd. Dave chips his nail polish with formulaic ease. It’s a very Rose shade, but that’s what you get when you go rifling through your sister’s stuff.

Dave rolls his shoulders and puts on as posh a voice as a Texan can do. “So, is being at Sburb everything you thought it’d be and more?”

“Yeah.”

He drops the voice. “I thought stringin’ obscenities together in long-drawn out opinion essays was your favourite hobby, and here you are dropping a ‘yeah’ like it’s the fucking front door to Nirvana.”

“I know I’m not the end-all-be-all of fucking positivity, but I know when to admit that I get to work towards something I want to do.” He numbers his list with his fingers. “I work with my friends, I get paid over minimum wage, and I get to stare at your stupid face all day. I can complain about many things – like having to freeze my ass off out here – but working at Sburb isn’t one of them.”

“Tell that to that one thousand word email you sent Terezi about going on lunch breaks without you.”

“She had it coming.”

Dave shakes his head in faux-disappointment. Terezi had wasting no time in forwarding the email to half the Law, HR, Development, and Dave departments. The only thing this godforsaken company cares about more than radio-worthy drama is romantic inter-departmental entanglements. “And to think you’re six months older than me.” He doesn’t know how or why that slipped out.

“Your mental age is calculated in dog years. You’re really two and a half years old.”

“You’re the one with the temper of a two and a half year old. God, your parents must hate you. You’ve been stuck in the terrible twos for – what? Nineteen years?”

Even Karkat shaking his head can’t hide his small smile. “You know, we’d get along if we tried.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“We could be friends.”

Dave looks at Karkat. All the small things from Karkat have been too loud lately, which is ironic, because Karkat is very small and very loud. It used to be that Dave could hash it out with Karkat and go on with his life, but now…

Now the whole thing has escaped him in a way nothing ever has before. And believe me, things have escaped him more often than not.  His annoyance at the whole Karkat and him teaming up suggestion has burned away, leaving only a husk. It’s only inevitable that he’ll find something new to simmer over before the end of the day.

“Is that what you want?” He barely gives Karkat a second to answer, before he goes, “because you know what I want? _I_ want to have a torrid love affair with this moment. I want to buy this moment dinner. I want to have this moment’s children. Because you have to be shitting me. We’d never be friends.”

“Because you’re a monumental dickhead?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Dave bites out.

“No, I’ve seen you be nice to people before.” Karkat forcefully finger-pokes the air. “I know you’re capable of it. So how come you’re always such colossal jerk around me?”

Dave busies himself by plucking a can out of the cooler and looking at it. “Ever considered that I’m just reflecting other people’s behaviour?”

“You were a dick to me first.”

“I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, so you’re gonna need to APA reference that shit real quick.”

“You were intentionally trying to wind me up.”

“Have you ever thought I was just trying to hold a conversation?” No. Karkat’s right. He was intentionally trying to wind him up. “It’s not my fault that it’s easier to run conversational circles around your ass than to count backwards.”

Karkat flexes his hands in his hair and groans lowly, overwhelmed and cross. “You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. Look,” Karkat pulls his hands away, his hair sticking up in all sorts of directions, just crying out to be tugged in the heat of passion. Oh dear. “We both have to sit here for the next however long it takes for a bunch of guys to get sweaty enough to decide that they don’t want to confront the homoeroticism of kicking balls around all night. We might as well make this bearable for each other. What’s your favourite colour?”

“Purple.” Dave lies. “What’s yours?”

“Yellow.” Karkat lies. “How many siblings do you have?”

Something twangs in his chest. He tries to tell himself that he doesn’t still bear his own venom against Bro. “One. How many do you have?”

“One too. What’s...” Karkat’s nose scrunches in thought. “Your favourite animal?”

“Birds.” Dave leans back against his arms. The rain continues to fall everywhere but on top of them. They are safe and something close to snug, if snug had any distant relatives that it only saw once or twice a year. “Why do you want to work here so bad?”

“I want to rant about shit.”

“Why don’t you just make a podcast?”

“And get copyright takedowns for playing music? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna care enough to take down a podcast dedicated solely to playing Switch on repeat.”

The side of Karkat’s mouth twitches. “Why do you? Work here, I mean.”

Dave shrugs. The question – or rather, the concept of the question – doesn’t bewilder and blindside him as much as it used to. “I like music.”

“That’s about the most generic response you could give. No way Scratch hired you because you dazzled him with ‘I like music’.”

“I just said I listen to Will Smith bops on repeat and he hired me on the spot.”

The laughter bursts out of Karkat before he can stop himself. He looks away slightly, bashful about it, but his eyes are still shaped with a laugh when he turns back. Dave feels the warmth in every kiss of his nerves.

“God, I’ve wanted to–”

“Can I get one of those drinks?” They both snap their attention towards the guy decked out in red football gear and sopping wet, who’s just _had_ to come around to this side of the van at _this_ precise moment. Dave feels a glimmer of something like Bro telling him how reckless and lame it is to just let people sneak up on him.

“Uh, yeah.” Karkat mumbles, grabbing a can and handing it over. Dave peers at all the other people making their way towards them for half time. Shouldn’t there be a food truck making actual money around here? Maybe Dave would make more investing in the greasy football food industry instead of bumping dicks with Sburb. Maybe he should tell Karkat about it instead so that when he loses out on the position he can have a backup career.

The guy heads off, free energy drink acquired, and Dave says, low enough for only Karkat to hear, “whoever gets rid of the most cans wins.”

Karkat glances at him, only a touch warily. “You’re on.”


End file.
